Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty)

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), in full Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems,
arms control treaty ratified in 1972 between the United States and the Soviet Union to limit deployment of missile systems that could theoretically be used to destroy incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched by the other superpower. Negotiations to prohibit ballistic missile defenses were first proposed by the United States in 1966 but did not begin until late 1969, as part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). The ABM Treaty was signed by U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev at a summit in Moscow in May 1972, and it was ratified by both the U.S. Senate and the Supreme Soviet later that year.

The ABM treaty limited each side to only two ABM deployment areas, one to protect the national capital and another to protect an ICBM launch site, with each ABM deployment area limited to 100 launch systems and 100 interceptor missiles. A 1974 protocol reduced the agreement to one ABM site apiece. The Soviet Union opted to maintain an established system protecting Moscow; it was upgraded in the 1980s and is said to be still operational. The United States opted to protect an ICBM site at Grand Forks, N.D., although the system deployed was decommissioned in 1976. To prevent the deployment of a nationwide battle management system, the treaty required all early-warning radars (usually large phased-array radars) to be sited on the periphery of the country, oriented outward. In 1984 the United States claimed that a Soviet radar system near the city of Krasnoyarsk, 800 km (500 miles) from the nearest border, violated this provision, and in 1989 the Soviets acknowledged the violation and agreed to dismantle the radar. In addition to traditional interceptor missiles, launchers, and radars, the ABM treaty also covers systems based on other principles, such as lasers.

Under the terms of the treaty, neither party was able to defend more than a small fraction of its entire territory, and both sides were thus kept subject to the deterrent effect of the other’s strategic forces. This arrangement was seen to reinforce the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD), in which the prospect of annihilation for both sides would prevent either side from “going nuclear” in the event of a conflict. The very concept of MAD was controversial, however. During the 1980s, U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan promoted his Strategic Defense Initiative (also known as Star Wars), based on an alternative concept of assured survival. Technology existing at the time did not support this ambitious goal, though, and in any case the end of the Cold War significantly lowered the risk of a massive nuclear exchange. During the course of the 1990s, attention turned to the risk of small-scale missile attacks from so-called “rogue” states, such as North Korea or Iraq. With this in mind, a National Missile Defense (NMD) system was proposed in the United States. Although it would involve no more than 100 interceptors, it was a system designed to provide nationwide defense and so would be inconsistent with the ABM treaty. For this reason, Russia publicly opposed the NMD. In order to mollify the Russians, the administration of U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton explored amending the ABM treaty during the 1990s to permit the deployment of limited defenses that would clearly not be able to blunt a Russian attack. The administration of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, however, saw no merit in trying to preserve a treaty that it described as a “relic” of the Cold War era, and in December 2001 Bush gave the required six-months notice of abrogation of the ABM treaty, which was the first time that the United States had withdrawn from a major arms control agreement. Russia did no more than describe this action as “mistaken.”